LINNAEUS FLOWER CLOCK

0200 – Night blooming cereus closes
0500 – Morning glories, wild roses
0600 – Spotted cat’s ear, catmint
0700 – African marigold, orange hawkweed, dandelions
0800 – Mouse-ear hawkweed, African daisies
0900 – Field marigold, gentians, prickly sowthistle closes
1000 – Helichrysum, Californium poppy, common nipplewort closes
1100 – Star of Bethlehem
1200 – Passion flower, goatsbeard, morning glory closes
1300 – Chiding pink closes
1400 – Scarlet pimpernel closes
1500 – Hawkbit closes
1600 – ‘Four o’clock’ plant opens, small bindweed closes, Californian poppy closes
1700 – White waterlily closes
1800 – Evening primrose, moonflower
1900
2000 – Daylilies and dandelions close
2100 – Flowering tobacco
2200 – Night blooming cereus

carl linnaeus, father of taxonomy, divided the flowering plants into three groups: the meteorici, which change their opening and closing times according to the weather conditions; the tropici, which change their opening and closing times according to the length of the day; and the aequinoctales, which have fixed opening and closing times, regardless of weather or season. linnaeus noted in his Philosophia Botanica that if one possessed a sufficiently large variety of aequinoctal species, it would be possible to tell time simply by observing the daily opening and closing of flowers.